Background: Sentinel lymph node biopsy performed under local anesthesia currently represents one of the main fields of investigation in breast cancer surgery because of its positive impact on the management and organisation of treatment. We previously published our preliminary experience with 115 patients; here we present an update of our experience with particular attention devoted to quality of life.
Patients and methods: From September 2000 to April 2003 we treated 244 patients with this technique. We developed a 'questionnaire of impact on quality of life - LA' to be administered to these patients, to assess their reactions to the procedure: we administered the questionnaire to 243 patients. Our aim was to verify whether the advantages in terms of treatment planning are accompanied by an improvement in quality of life and a good degree of acceptance by the patients.
Results: The questionnaire was administered to the patients during follow-up and we obtained positive results; the impact of the procedure under local anesthesia was positive for 81% of patients, while the remaining 19% reported that it had 'no impact at all'. We can conclude that axillary sentinel node biopsy, when performed under local anesthesia, meets with a very high degree of acceptance by the patients and exerts an optimal impact on quality of life.